Mme President,
Distinguished Executive Director,
members of the Executive Board,

I would like to join other delegations in thanking you, Madam ED, for the Annual Report.

We commend UNICEF for the results achieved in the context of a challenging poly-crisis which has been the permanent background of UNICEF’s work since 2020.

It is our firm conviction that this poly-crisis can only be addressed jointly, through strengthend multilateral cooperation, with the United Nations at its core.

Germany remains committed to the reform of the UN Development System and in finding ways for international institutions to cooperate closer.

We encourage UNICEF to play an active role towards this goal.

Three short remarks from our side: on funding, Nexus and gender

First, on funding:

We welcome the re-energized Funding Compact.

Ensuring an adequate, more predictable and sustainable funding basis is of utmost importance if we want to reach the SDGs, with core-contributions at the heart of it.

In this regard, we share your concerns, Mme ED.
Second,
The percentage of the overall UNICEF budget that went into the work in crisis situations
has again increased to now 64 %. This is, we understand, in rection to growing humanitarian needs, and we commend how UNICEF has successfully risen to this challenge. But we continue to be concerned that UNICEF risks to slide into an imbalance of its dual mandate: humanitarian and development.
We are convinced that putting into practice the Humanitarian-Development-Peace-Nexus is key to enable populations to master future crises, and thereby significantly reducing future humanitarian needs. This includes building resilient societies, climate resilient agriculture and shock resilient social protection systems
To do so, we need to find integrated solutions to very complex challenges which
transcend the logic of silos, sectors and mandates.

In this regard, Germany welcomes that UNICEF is playing an active role in developing proposals for better linking adaptive social protection and climate finance.

Finally, on gender,
we welcome the progress made in implementing UNICEF’s Gender Action Plan.
Women and girls in all their diversity represent the largest marginalized segment of the population. Overcoming gender inequality, we believe, is absolutely crucial for success.
We would like encourage UNICEF to continue on this path.

In conclusion,
I want to assure you, that Germany will continue to be a steadfast partner for UNICEF, programmatically and financially, including through core funding.

I also want thank the entire UNICEF staff for their commitment and hard work under very often exceptionally difficult living and working conditions.

I thank you.